Waking up and going to breakfast – lovely venue, excellent yet simple breakfast and most importantly, coffee! The proper stuff! We paid our bill and arranged a taxi to the car hire place. It was a little sad to be leaving this lovely accommodation so soon – we will have to make sure we have enough time to enjoy it properly when we come back from our tour of Namibia.
We were both a little apprehensive about this day. We had to collect a car, with a tent on the roof, and drive it over 400km from Windhoek to Etosha National Park. And arrive before sunset! We had a good tour of the car and its features and signed a lot of paperwork. They were very keen for us to recognise that the numerous traffic accidents that happen in Namibia are largely due to people driving too fast on gravel roads. All of this naturally helped with my stress levels!
Nevertheless, with Jamie calmly at the wheel, we set of to the nearby supermarket to stock up on supplies for the week. The supermarket and the mall could easily have been in Paris or Berlin. We found everything we needed and even bought hot chips from the counter in the supermarket. We need those at home!
Then came the first crisis of the day – where on earth had we left the car?! We couldn’t find it anyway. We checked all of the levels of the car park, with the trolley in tow, before realising that there were two car parks, one at each end of the mall. Doh! We raced to the other car park and set off out of Windhoek. We knew we we would now be pushing time to get to the campsite in Etosha before sunset. We estimated that sunset would be around 5:30, and weren’t far wrong.
Once we were out of the town (and the roadworks!) Jamie soon settled into driving. We were travelling on a good Tarmac road that was almost completely straight. Kilometres always seem to pass by quickly and as the hours past, we neared our destination. We kept an eye on the sun and sure enough, we were pushing it to get to the camp on time. At the entrance to the park, we had convinced ourselves that we would be turned away because we were too late, but the lady simpler said “go now, pay later!” Further on still, at the end of the Tarmac road, again we tried to pay for the park fees, but again were told to hurry along and pay on the way back. These are very friendly people.
We did as instructed and set off on the gravel road for our camp at Halali. At this point, knew that we couldn’t be asked to turn around because we wouldn’t be able to get out of the park before sunset. This didn’t reduce our stress levels though! We adhered strictly to the 60km/h speed limit and eventually arrived at the camp 10 minutes after sunset. We had picked up another car behind us too. Shortly after we arrived, the gates were shut. Goodness only knows what would have happened if we had been a few minutes later!
Anyway, we signed in and found a free pitch, which was a little complicated in itself because it wasn’t clear where one pitch ended and the other began. We sorted out and Jamie unpacked the roof tent while I made dinner and lit a fire. Phew, we had made it! After a glass of well-deserved wine, we were both ready for bed! Just as we were preparing for bed however, the campers next to us said that they had just returned from the onsite floodlit waterhole where there were black rhino. So we set off to see them.
Sure enough, there were four rhino and a giraffe drinking from the waterhole. We watched for half an hour as the interacted, and the rhinos had a bit of a tussle. Then we headed back to camp and climbed up into our roof tent (you’ll have to see the photos to understand this, but everyone had one!) for sleep!
It should be noted that, despite the stress of this day, we did find time to appreciate the sheer beauty and wilderness of our surroundings. Namibia is so vast that you can drive for an hour on a dead straight road and not see another person. From hills to rolling Savannah, this place is incredible.
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